Type 2

[Jarralad]

Hi I’ve had type 2 for about 4 years and just found out my levels are rising. I’m gutted

 

[Leadinglights]

Hi I’ve had type 2 for about 4 years and just found out my levels are rising. I’m gutted

Welcome to the forum.
What measures have you been taking to manage your blood glucose levels as it sounds as if something has slipped, may your diet or your tolerance to carbohydrates has changed.
What is you latest HbA1C, I'm sure you will be able to turn it around by making some changes.

 

[Jarralad]

Good morning thanks.
My level was 59 and I was informed my level should be below 50. My diet barely changes to be honest. Very boring and this last few months I’ve been doing 2 very demanding jobs working as a painter. I really don’t understand how it could go up. But I’m obviously doing something wrong.

 

[ianf0ster]

Several things (apart from the carbohydrates you consume) can affect your blood glucose levels:
Injury/Infection, Stress/Lack of Sleep , Medications such as Statins and Steroids are the most common ones.

Other possibilities are the slow changes such as increasing insulin resistance ad/or carb creep in the diet.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Welcome to the forum @Jarralad

Diabetes can be a fickle foe, and some people’s diabetes seems to gradually evolve over time and require ongoing tweaks and adjustments to how it is managed.

It was once felt to be inevitably progressive, but some recent research (and a lot of people’s experiences on the forum) suggest it can be put into remission, or progress slowed either through weight loss (specifically abdominal fat that may have built up around the organs even if you aren’t particularly overweight), or through a low or moderate carbohydrate menu.

Have you experimented with reducing the amount of total carbohydrate in your meals? And are you carrying extra weight that it might be helpful to lose?

 

[Jarralad]

Welcome to the forum @Jarralad

Diabetes can be a fickle foe, and some people’s diabetes seems to gradually evolve over time and require ongoing tweaks and adjustments to how it is managed.

It was once felt to be inevitably progressive, but some recent research (and a lot of people’s experiences on the forum) suggest it can be put into remission, or progress slowed either through weight loss (specifically abdominal fat that may have built up around the organs even if you aren’t particularly overweight), or through a low or moderate carbohydrate menu.

Have you experimented with reducing the amount of total carbohydrate in your meals? And are you carrying extra weight that it might be helpful to lose?

thanks for that message I feel a bit better after that. To be honest I was dropped in the deep end by the dr and learned as I went. My bmi is 1 over what it should be so definitely room for improvement. I’m getting stricter with my diet now but hearing that the diabetes can change does make me feel like it’s not all my fault. I’m going to tweak bits of my diet hopefully that helps. Thanks for the message though it’s did does help

 

[Jarralad]

Several things (apart from the carbohydrates you consume) can affect your blood glucose levels:
Injury/Infection, Stress/Lack of Sleep , Medications such as Statins and Steroids are the most common ones.

Other possibilities are the slow changes such as increasing insulin resistance ad/or carb creep in the diet.

Thanks for the message I am on statins so that might have an impact but carb creep also could also have an affect. I’m being more strict with myself with regard to carbs and see how it goes. I’ve 2 more reviews this year to see if my meds need to change

 

[rebrascora]

Sorry to hear that your levels are creeping up a bit. I wonder if perhaps you didn't make the right dietary changes in the first place, particularly if you have not been given much guidance.

If you can give us an idea of a typical breakfast lunch and evening meal, perhaps we can suggest alternatives which may work better for you. Just changing your breakfast to a lower carb option can make a significant difference to your diabetes management because most typical breakfast options are quite high carb (breakfast cereals/porridge/toast) and at a time of the day when most of us are more insulin resistant, so those carbs can have a worse effect than at other times of the day. Therefore finding a low carb breakfast that you enjoy can improve your results significantly and is easy to get into a habit of since most of us have the same thing for breakfast most days.

 

[Jarralad]

Good afternoon
Mostly I have oats frozen berries and Greek yogurt for breakfast just about every day through the day I have 2 apples and soup or lentil pasta sometimes a sandwich evening meal it varies so much but I do eat chips not every night I do eat pizza again not every night but I’m doing something wrong. I do have the occasional packet of crisps. I used to eat loads and I do have the occasional chocolate or jelly sweeties I could cut down on these items and I must be doing something wrong. I work a physically demanding job and work spare hours renovating my daughters new home so I think I’m getting enough exercise. Having thought about it now I suppose all of these things married together don’t make the best choice. Never thought of it that way because it’s all occasional but together mounts up

 

[rebrascora]

It may be that you are one of us who find oats a problem. They are like rocket fuel for me and I have to be very conscious of portion size..... usually just a very small handful of granola in my yoghurt is all I can get away with.... literally 1 heaped dessert spoon. It might be worth you weighing what your current portion of oats actually is as I suspect you may be overloading on carbs at breakfast. Also 2 apples with a sandwich would be quite a lot. I rarely have more than half an apple at a time with a big chunk of cheese for lunch. The fat in the cheese is satisfying, slows down the release of carbs from the apple and provides slow release energy without impacting your BG levels itself.
Like oats, lentils can be OK for some people and less so for others. Sadly, much as I love them, I seem to extract almost twice the glucose from lentils than they are supposed to contain, so they are not a great choice for me. You might be well advised to do some testing around your meals containing oats and lentils to see how your body is responding to those meals. Testing immediately before and then 2 hours after, will give you an idea if those particular foods are causing you problems and perhaps you may need to adjust portion size or mostly avoid them depending upon how much you enjoy them.
Bread is another source of carbs and a typical sandwich in 2 slices of bread will be almost 40g carbs. If you add in 2 apples at 15g of carbs each, that is the best part of 70g carbs just in that one small meal, even though it might not seem like much. If you use bread buns and have 2, then potentially more. Add in a packet of crisps and you hit over 80g carbs just for lunch. It can easily mount up.

If you are reducing your carbs, you need to increase fat and protein to provide the energy you need..... hence the large chunk of cheese with half an apple and real double cream in my morning coffee and try nuts instead of crisps (unless you are allergic to them of course) or my personal favourite.... pork scratchings.... if your teeth can stand up to them that is. 🙄 A boiled egg makes a great snack with a spoon of full fat mayonnaise.

I know that we have been encouraged to follow a low fat way of eating for years and been told that fat causes cholesterol and cardio vascular disease, but from my own experience I am far healthier and feel fitter by eating more fat and cutting my carbs right down than I have for many years and others have found the same.

 

[rebrascora]

Just out of curiosity.... does your username relate to a geographical area of the north east? If so, welcome from another north easterner... although a little further inland here.

 

[Leadinglights]

It is suggested that no more that 130g carbs per day is a good starting point for reducing blood glucose levels and from what you say you are having I suspect it will be quite a bit more than that.
Have a look at this link for some ideas for modifying your diet https://lowcarbfreshwell.co.uk/

 

[Jarralad]

When I was told I was on the rise I was gutted but reading the replies I realise I’ve probably been complacent with my choices. Although lately I’ve been putting in 12-13 hour shifts my levels are still rising. I will definitely start being more strict with myself and looking harder into the total carb consumption. I’ve had no guidance really from my GP so all information I read here is very welcome. I honestly thought my job would burn off most of what I ate but obviously not. Thanks for the tips everyone and thanks for having me. It does really help
Aye it’s Jarrow Barbara

 

[Martin.A]

Good afternoon
Mostly I have oats frozen berries and Greek yogurt for breakfast just about every day through the day I have 2 apples and soup or lentil pasta sometimes a sandwich evening meal it varies so much but I do eat chips not every night I do eat pizza again not every night but I’m doing something wrong. I do have the occasional packet of crisps. I used to eat loads and I do have the occasional chocolate or jelly sweeties I could cut down on these items and I must be doing something wrong. I work a physically demanding job and work spare hours renovating my daughters new home so I think I’m getting enough exercise. Having thought about it now I suppose all of these things married together don’t make the best choice. Never thought of it that way because it’s all occasional but together mounts up

I'm with @rebrascora on the apples thing - a half at a time, but I have a handful of walnuts with mine rather than cheese, for the same reason. Nuts are mostly fat but it's mostly unsaturated, the so-called 'good fat'.

I have the same breakfast as you some days but as oats are 60% carb I measure out 20g, which is roughly equivalent to a single Weetabix (my other breakfast). Do you measure your portions?

 

[rebrascora]

Whilst there are some areas of diet you can tighten up on a bit, your diet is not desperately bad and I am inclined to wonder if you might not be a straightforward type 2, considering your active lifestyle.
Can you tell us a bit about how your original diagnosis came about? Was it identified through a routine blood test or did you develop symptoms and if so what were they?
You say that you are only 1 over the normal BMI range, so clearly not significantly overweight. Have you lost much/any weight since diagnosis?
If I understand correctly your most recent HbA1c is 59. Do you know what it was at diagnosis and did it go down initially following dietary changes and then has started to creep up again or has it been a steady upward progression over the 4 years? Are you on any medication for diabetes? Have you been on statins for a while or have they been newly introduced?

 

[Jarralad]

I really thought apples were good but it’s like first day at school. This is the most information I’ve had since being diagnosed. I’ll be changing my fruit intake and probably the fruit I eat. There’s so much more to it than I thought. I have about 2 tablespoons of oats in my yogurt but I think I have to start from step one and look at every thing I eat and portion size. Thanks everyone

 

[Leadinglights]

I really thought apples were good but it’s like first day at school. This is the most information I’ve had since being diagnosed. I’ll be changing my fruit intake and probably the fruit I eat. There’s so much more to it than I thought. I have about 2 tablespoons of oats in my yogurt but I think I have to start from step one and look at every thing I eat and portion size. Thanks everyone

The book or app Carbs and Cals is very useful as it gives the carbs of various portion sizes of a whole range of foods so it is easy to make comparisons between different fruits or veg, dairy, and sample meals which can be very revealing.
Many do think it is just the 'sugar' content they need to look at but it is the carbohydrate value which is the important one.

 

[Jarralad]

That is something I will definitely look into. Thanks for the heads up. I thought I knew more than I actually do. There’s much more to know than I thought.

 

[Jarralad]

Whilst there are some areas of diet you can tighten up on a bit, your diet is not desperately bad and I am inclined to wonder if you might not be a straightforward type 2, considering your active lifestyle.
Can you tell us a bit about how your original diagnosis came about? Was it identified through a routine blood test or did you develop symptoms and if so what were they?
You say that you are only 1 over the normal BMI range, so clearly not significantly overweight. Have you lost much/any weight since diagnosis?
If I understand correctly your most recent HbA1c is 59. Do you know what it was at diagnosis and did it go down initially following dietary changes and then has started to creep up again or has it been a steady upward progression over the 4 years? Are you on any medication for diabetes? Have you been on statins for a while or have they been newly introduced?

I actually went to the Drs for my gout. I came back with high cholesterol and diabetes. I didn’t really get any information at all from the Dr just statins and metformin I was completely in the dark. Coronavirus came I wasn’t monitored I only had my eye examination which is fine. I was only told I should be under 10 if I measure myself then told I don’t need to measure as it’s not important on type 2. I was also told they’d rather I ate a whole bowl of fruit rather than 2 packets of crisps. Now I realise there’s a heck of a lot more to learn. Very daunting how much goes into it.

 

[Leadinglights]

I actually went to the Drs for my gout. I came back with high cholesterol and diabetes. I didn’t really get any information at all from the Dr just statins and metformin I was completely in the dark. Coronavirus came I wasn’t monitored I only had my eye examination which is fine. I was only told I should be under 10 if I measure myself then told I don’t need to measure as it’s not important on type 2. I was also told they’d rather I ate a whole bowl of fruit rather than 2 packets of crisps. Now I realise there’s a heck of a lot more to learn. Very daunting how much goes into it.

When you think of all the thousands of people who do not look at forums like this and blunder along with the poor and inadequate advice given by some GPs, it is no wonder the NHS is overwhelmed with people suffering the complications caused by uncontrolled diabetes.
Hopefully by reading around the forum and some of the links posted you will be in a better position to get to grips with some dietary changes and realise that there is no reason to have boring tasteless meals.